Engaging political histories of urban uprisings with young people: The Liverpool riots, 1981 and 2011

Abstract

<jats:p> Based on a participatory research project which involved academics and young people at KCC Live, a community radio station in Merseyside, exploring the 1981 and 2011 riots in Liverpool, UK, this paper argues that co-produced research involving young people and radio provides an under-utilised avenue for research on historical and political geographies. Working together for a year in 2012–13, the academic and non-academic participants produced a radio documentary exploring how and why the 1981 riots in Liverpool occurred, and what we could learn from those historical events to help understand the more recent 2011 riots. Young people’s capacities to engage with past events that took place before they were born, in order to reflect on and understand the political present, are seldom explored in research. The research that this paper is based on therefore provides an original and significant contribution to debates on conducting research with young people, in particular developing approaches to thinking through how young people engage with, and make sense of, politics and political activity, especially disruptive or insurgent activities like riots/urban uprisings. As a result, the paper makes an important contribution to work being done on the political capacities of young people; collective histories and memories in young people’s understandings of politics, place, and space; and knowledges of urban uprisings. We argue that bringing children’s/youth geographies into dialogue with political and historical geographies such as those discussed here is a useful avenue for future research. </jats:p>

Thinking problem‐space in studies of revolt and archival methods

“…[emphasis original]. Political and media discourses surrounding events like the England riots of 2011 (Benwell et al, 2020;Tyler, 2013aTyler, , 2013b or those of France in 2005 (Dikeç, 2006(Dikeç, , 2007 were quick to depoliticise these events in the manner Guha suggests. Those involved were cast as mindless thugs and/or were subject to colonial-racist narratives on 'integration'.…”

“…Dikeç (2007, p. 1192) studying the 2005 urban revolts in France points to the overlapping ‘geographies of inequalities, discrimination and repression’ indicative of embedded socio‐economic problems that characterised the problem‐space in which uprisings occurred across France's banlieues . Likewise, Benwell et al.’s (2020) study of the 2011 urban insurrection in Liverpool emphasises the structural and political contexts of wealth inequality, social exclusion and youth unemployment that framed the insurrection and those like it across England in 2011 (Newburn, 2015). With these problems identified, rioting as a response can be seen as the articulation of a political demand to redress these issues and not acts of mindless violence.…”

The 1919 ‘race riots’ – Within and beyond exceptional moments in South Shields and Glasgow

“…Asserting this wider presence of 'violent conditions' alongside a more critical reading of spontaneity as introduced above, is important for revisiting the riots, as these hostilities did not simply surface during the moments of violence. We argue that attending to the wider contexts of violence is crucial for thinking through events as usable pasts, and riots as imagined geographies (Benwell et al, 2020) The bringing together of the above literatures allows the following conceptual threads to be traced through our empirical reflections. We aim to deploy a relational approach to think within and beyond the racialised violence found within port places in 1919, to engage with spatial-temporal contexts, key actors in the formation of the events alongside wider contributing factors, contestations, and longer trajectories.…”

Academic Ventriloquism

“…Whilst some authors have included the names of participants as authors in their texts, for instance Kellett et al (2004), where Ruth Forrest, Naomi Dent, and Simon Ward (all aged 10) are named as co-authors, and Tomm's (1992) article, which names three of this therapy clients Cynthia, Andrew, and Vanessa as coauthors; this is far from the norm in academic research and publishing. Benwell et al (2020) hoped to include 'Volunteers at KCC Live Community Radio Station' in the list of authors for their recent publication, yet this was not included in the final print due to the online manuscript submission portal requiring input of author first and last names and affiliations. However, collaborative groups are more welcomed in health sciences where it is not uncommon for long lists of authors to be followed by, or abbreviated to, a study consortium name, although this is not without its problems (see Thelwall, 2020).…”